AgenticWebScore
Scan

Discoverability · Recommended · High impact

AGENTS.md with the required sections

The instruction file for coding and operations agents. It fails more often than any other check in the curated corpus we measured, and the usual reason is not a missing file but a file without the sections an agent needs.

  • Recommended
  • High impact
  • Draft standard
AGENTS.md with the required sections — Property, Value
Property Value
Check idagents-md
DimensionDiscoverability (20%)
TierRecommended — pool 20 pts
Weight inside tier2
ImpactHigh
MaturityDraft — A published specification that is not yet ratified.
ConditionalNo
Publishing skillagents-md
Standards—

What the scanner requests

  • /AGENTS.md

What is measured

The scanner fetches https://<domain>/AGENTS.md (the path this check probes) and reads it as markdown. Pass = 200 served as text/markdown or text/plain, with an H1 and the sections an agent needs to act: what the project or service is, setup or build commands, how to run tests, code or API conventions, and security or contact rules. Partial = the file is served but omits one or more of those sections, or is returned as text/html. Fail = 404 or an HTML page for the path.

Reproduce it yourself

You do not have to take our word for any of this. Run the same measurement against your own domain:

              DOMAIN=example.com
curl -sS "https://$DOMAIN/AGENTS.md" | head -30
            

The fix

This is the artifact to ship. It is the complete change, not a description of one.

              # AGENTS.md

## Project overview

Example Inc is a payments API for marketplaces. Public docs: https://example.com/docs

## Setup and build

- Install dependencies: `pnpm install`
- Dev server: `pnpm dev` (http://localhost:3000)
- Production build: `pnpm build`

## Testing

- Tests: `pnpm test`; lint and types: `pnpm lint && pnpm typecheck`

## Conventions

- TypeScript strict mode; no `any` in exported signatures.
- Public API routes live in `src/routes/api/` and must be documented in the OpenAPI file.

## Security and contact

- Never commit secrets; use `.env.local`.
- Report vulnerabilities to security@example.com.
            

Related checks

Related checks — Check, Tier, Impact, Same skill
Check Tier Impact Same skill
reachable — Homepage open to agent accessEssentialCritical—
robots-txt — robots.txt with agent directivesEssentialHigh—
sitemap-xml — sitemap.xml valid and currentEssentialHigh—
llms-txt — /llms.txt published and well-structuredEssentialCritical—
link-headers — Discovery via Link response headersEmergingMedium—
dns-aid — DNS-AID discovery recordEmergingMedium—
canonical — Canonical and hreflang disciplineRecommendedMedium—
llms-full — /llms-full.txt expanded contextRecommendedLow—